Copy of Tessa Woodward-Planning Lessons and Courses_ Designing Sequences of Work for the Language Classroom-113

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7.6 The design model for planning
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accuracy within a certain time period. Sometimes we’ll encourage
students to do tasks and to notice what they’ve done, and we hope they
get better at the language in the process. We’ll need to do different things
at different times. 
Whatever your starting point, you may want to write some notes, do
some mental rehearsal and then, after teaching, have a ponder to make
sure your classes are getting a varied and balanced diet. Since starting
points, lesson notes and planning behaviour all depend on your person-
ality and what you think language, learning, teaching and people are all
about, we need a course and lesson planning model that can encompass
differences. The one I’d like to propose is the ‘design model’. The design
model of lesson and course planning provides a clear framework for all
the options I’ve mentioned in this chapter and before. The design model
looks at a lesson or a course as a creation, a structuring of time and ex-
perience for our learners using a set of resources (time, people, materi-
als) in order to achieve learning. 
In all jobs there are times when you have to consider the future, think
about what needs to be achieved, assess your resources and work
context, define the problems or issues, consult references, mull things
over to see what’s possible, construct things, and adjust them when their
inherent problems become clear.
We could liken course and lesson planning to setting and solving design
problems in a principled way. We too can try out, discard, combine and
redesign without a feeling of guilt if things don’t go right first time. We
also need times when we just watch and wait and times when we’re more
active. 
I’ve seen furniture makers
come back from listening to
clients and then work for
hours placing pieces of wood
on the floor, arranging them
this way and that, turning
them over, matching them,
swapping them and then 
going for a walk to have a
think. I’ve watched a quilter
choose and cut out pieces of
material, placing them here
and there on a table until an
agreeable solution to a design
problem is found. And I’ve
seen people planning large 
and small gardens by talking
things over with the 
owners, sketching things 
out, transferring workable
ideas to graph paper, filling 
in planting programmes,
standing back, seeing how
things take, moving the
mistakes, transplanting the
successes, watching and
waiting for the weather. 
They are all working hard,
but also enjoying the work
and the results. 
7 Getting down to the preparation
210
THE DESIGN MODEL
7.7 Conclusion
We play a part in the business of teaching and learning, but like
gardeners, we know that the other forces at work, the weather, the
students, the germination times, are just as important as we are. There is
room in this design model for both large-scale, broad sweep planning
and detailed adjustment. There is room for goals of many different types
before, during and after teaching. It is a cyclical rather than a linear
model and there’s time in it for planning and evaluating before, during
and after teaching.
THE DESIGN MODEL
After the lesson or course
What’s left over?
Hmm, I need to change that.
How has what we did shifted
student perception and skill?
I need to calm down and think!
During the lesson or course
Watch and listen to the students.
How’s the time going?
Note down questions and reactions.
Before the lesson or course
What do students know?
What resources do I have?
What shall I do?